The Evolution of Retailer Mobile Apps in the 2014 Holiday Season

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The adoption of mobile devices is the single most rapidly growing and evolving adoption of any technology in the world currently. With huge number of people jumping on the smartphone technology bandwagon, marketers can find it a massive struggle to keep up. The huge potential is ideal to tap into, and businesses are flourishing after adopting the mobile platform. The mobile app industry was in its infancy as recently as five years ago. However, currently it comprises one of the largest markets in the world of technology, with billions of people spending almost 86% of their time using mobile devices on mobile app use.

The holiday season of 2014 can be viewed as a new landmark for retail companies, as they have really upped the ante when it comes to using the mobile app platform for their business. The highly competitive nature of the holiday shopping season saw plenty of effort on the part of retail companies to leverage the mobile platform and use it to their advantage. This has resulted in a massive evolution in the retailer mobile app segment.

Studying the Numbers

An independent study, collecting data from 150 retail mobile apps during the pre-holiday season in 2014, picked up some really interesting data. These trends and strategies have helped change the domain of retailer mobile apps and can be expected to be repeated over and over throughout 2015. Retailers increased their use of mobile communication during this period of time, and customers generally responded with extremely encouraging responses.

Here are some of the more compelling statistics –

• Compared to the previous year, 34% more push messages and notifications were sent by retailers through their mobile apps in 2014.
• Engagement rate for users increased to twice the amount for the previous year as a result of these push notifications.
• Among the total instances of app opens, almost a third was a direct result of the push notifications.

The Importance of Push Messages

Push notifications proved to be the difference-maker in the holiday season of 2014. Consumers appeared to be more engaged as a direct result, and retention rates were found to be considerably higher. Compared to email marketing, push notification scored heavily on all aspects, being seen to increase open rates by 50%, increasing CTR (Click Through Rate) by ten times and even resulting in a whopping 1200% greater conversion.

Retail companies targeted heavy shopping days like Thanksgiving and Black Friday to step up their game with push notifications, and were suitably rewarded. The study also showed that there are defined parameters that can be adhered to for making push notifications a success. The day of choice and the time of day are important factors in this regard.

These are indeed great signs for the future of mobile engagement for the retail industry. Companies who respect the unique nature of the mobile platform and its eccentricities can keep leveraging its huge potential in the holiday season by targeted mobile marketing campaigns.